Media Corner: when Rebekah met Robbie Williams
In this week’s tales from the media, Rebekah James, Connect’s media expert shares her tips on what not to do when being interviewed on live TV and radio; based on her experience with the singer songwriter, Robbie Williams.
Whilst reporting on an arts and features radio show for the BBC in the late 90’s I had the good fortune (or not as the case may be!) of interviewing the English singer and songwriter Robbie Williams. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995 launching a solo career in 1996. Robbie’s second solo album, ‘I’ve been Expecting You’ featured the songs “Millenium” and “She’s the one,” his first number one singles.
When Robbie was performing at huge music festival in Cardiff , my producer sent to me to the site of the OB (outside broadcast) to literally “grab” him for 3 minutes for a live radio interview post-performance. The excitement had been brewing all week and I’d been plugging this upcoming interview every day on my daily radio show. This had all been agreed by his agent and as young broadcaster in the late 90’s I was chomping at the bit to meet this musical prodigy and one of my all-time favourite musical heroes! The arrangement was that Robbie would exit stage left; he’d have a few minutes to cool down, catch his breath but I would step in and catch him ‘in the moment!’
As an eager beaver presenter, I had my questions at the ready and had spent far too long writing my brief! Here I was, being given an opportunity to interview one of the biggest pop icons of the 90’s in my hometown, Cardiff when he had a no 1 hit single in the chart! Butterflies in my belly, microphone in hand I approached Robbie when I was given the green light by the production crew.
“Robbie Williams, welcome to Wales …how was …” and I was literally stopped in my tracks! Robbie went completely off topic and started talking about Take That and content that had no relevance to what I was wanting to achieve from the interview in terms of content. My eye was on the clock. I had 3 minutes to do a good job of this so I did what any journalist would do in this situation and interrupted him! It soon became apparent that not only were his answers too long they were not always relevant. And so I continued to try to keep things moving which in turn changed his answers and they became more relevant and to the point. I was like a bowl of wobbly jelly deep down but I’m delighted to say that by the end of the interview I felt the brief had been adhered to and I was happy with what was ‘aired’ despite being totally thrown out of my young broadcaster comfort zone!
The fact is that journalists/ presenters are almost always pressed for time. We have short attention spans and tight deadlines/ airtime. If a contributor is rambling or taking an age to get to the point, we have no choice but to move things along for their benefit as well as ours. Clearly, the questions and answers vary in length during a media interview; however, a journalist’s question will probably last 5 – 15 seconds and a good length of an answer is 30 – 40 seconds. If you want to get your point across when being interviewed without being cut off; listen to the question , make your answer relevant and don’t drag things out.
“Robbie; it was a joy meeting you, a challenge interviewing you but great learning for a young presenter!”
